What does it mean to swim in someone's wave/draft (mentioned in the olympics)?

Question

what's this swimming term mean? i've heard them mention this a couple of times. especially during the interview with the piersol, lezak, and hansen with the host dude ( maybe bob costas or the other old guy) and they also mentioned this during the men's 4x100 free relay. they were talking about how lezak was trying to swim close to the lane line when alain bernard turned for home on the last 50.

Answer 1

Drafting in swimming is a hot topic among competitive swimmers, especially in open water. In cycling, drafting is illegal and carries a penalty. However, in swimming, there is currently no penalty for drfating since it is hard to identify. Swimmers have different aspects on drafting, some think it's okay because it is using a naturally occuring force (the pull of the pther person moving through the water) and some think it is cheating since you are gaining power from someone else. The camps are pretty divided. When I swim open water I find people draft a LOT. Whether it is intentional or not is another story. Sometimes visibility makes it nearly impossible to realize that you areriding someone's feet but sometimes it's obvious. Personally I don't draft on purpose and I find a good kick in the direction of the face or hands will stop other people from doing so, but that's the world of open water, not the pool. With lane lines restricting how close you can actually get to someone, I doubt there will ever be regulations on drafting in pool swimming any time soon.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

It meeens that they r swimming behind or close to the other swimer goin at a good pace and with a big kick.Swimmers normaly create a wave and if u can get on there wave it gives u a bit vof a push and is lese work for u and mre for them.Its like bike riding,if u stay behind some one else they r pulling u along.Hope i hellped

Answer 3

Okay, first off I would like to say to 'Kristy' you are wrong because drafting is legal in competitive cycling and in most cycling except triathlons with people who are not so familiar with cycling. Now to the point, I think the easiest way to explain is Im sure you've seen a boat or have been on one... Well if you see the boats wake behind it it makes a wave type thing that goes out into a V just like a regular 'V'. Thats what swimmers make while swimming, it's not as large tho as you probally notice. If a swimmer is swimming close to a lane line the V carries out as you probally know and can go into the next persons lane. This causes the water to 'Break' and it is easier to swim through that water and it takes less energy, just like if you see runners running behind each other. This is a very important thing for distant swimming and even shorter races such as the 100 as Jason Leazak swam.  I hope you get the point and I have a lot of experience with this, I have been competitivly swimming for 8 years.  One last thing in open water swimming people swim right behind each other and that's even more of a draft instead of swimming very close to a lane line.

Hope this answered your question...

Kevin

Surrey, United Kingdom

Answer 4

When a swimmer swims, the swimmer creates a 'V' shaped current behind them. If the swimmer swims too close to the lane line, their current could go into the next lane, and the swimmer in the next lane can swim into the draft (current), and get pulled a little by the current.

If you watch a olympic freestyler or a boat go through the water, they create that 'V' shaped current. Imagine a speedboat in the water. If a swimmer swam in the speedboat's current, the current would pull the swimmer along. That is like drafting.

It is not very bad, only if you let the other person draft you too much and let them pass. Lezak drafted on Bernard and passed. Good for Lezak. Bad for Bernard.

Hope that helps (and was not too confuzing) :)

Answer 5

I find it very odd that Bernard made that mistake. I know this was his first Olympics and I can't find any information about him prior to the Olympics (other than his WR swim in the Netherlands) so maybe it was an amateur mistake? I think at the end of the race he realized what happened. Had he not made the mistake I wonder if Lezak would have won? Because the next night Bernard defeated him in what was basically the same event, he even defeated Eamon who had beat his WR in the finals.

Answer 6

Its basically when someone swims beside someone lane to lane......if I kick and pull really hard I create a current/draft and it affects the other swimmer just because they dont have much water insted its all wavy haha..hope I didn't sound to confusing...I get that all the time when I race!